If ordinary reality consists of enormously stable pneuminous accretions, then the possibility of anomalous causation raises a difficult question: how might a comparatively local configuration of human consciousness become capable of modifying the wider field? A possible answer lies in the concept of pneuminous intensity. However, intensity may not be the only means through which anomalous effects are produced. There may be a fundamental distinction between the deliberate application of conceptuality to the vector and the release of power through the reduction of accretive determination. These suggest two potentially different modes of magickal or occult action.
Within Pneuminous Accretive Theory, magick can be understood as the deliberate application of conceptuality to the vector field. A desired outcome is established as a pneuminous configuration and directed towards manifestation. In this mode, intent is central. The practitioner seeks to bring about a particular state of affairs by applying a concept to the vector.
The possible efficacy of such an operation would depend upon the intensity of the configuration and its capacity to modify the more stable accretions constituting ordinary reality. Intensity should not, however, be understood as equivalent to the quantity of accumulated conceptual content. A configuration may be elaborate, widely believed or continually reinforced without necessarily possessing any unusual capacity to modify the wider field. Concentration, coherence and the organisation of conceptuality may be more important than its sheer quantity. A relatively small but intensely organised configuration might, under exceptional conditions, acquire a disproportionate capacity to affect surrounding structures. This remains speculative. The theory does not yet establish what constitutes intensity, how it might be measured, or why particular forms of organisation would produce anomalous effects.
Nevertheless, this provides one possible model of magickal action: the intentional application of an intensified conceptual configuration to the vector field. There is, however, a second possibility, which operates in an almost opposite direction. Many spiritual and occult traditions suggest that the accumulation of ordinary conceptual activity can obstruct rather than facilitate unusual forms of experience. Practices involving silence, concentration, non-identification and the suspension of habitual thought seek to interrupt the established organisation of consciousness.
Within a pneuminous framework, these practices might be understood as weakening the hold of local human accretions. But what if this reduction does more than simply remove obstacles to the formation of more powerful intentions? What if the attenuation of accretion permits a freer flow of power through the individual, without that power being directed by a deliberately imposed conceptual configuration? In this second mode, the practitioner does not necessarily seek to produce a predetermined effect. Instead, the reduction of habitual accretions might allow action to emerge through a less constrained relationship with the wider pneuminous field.
The resulting phenomena might appear spontaneous, intuitive or even independent of conscious intention. This suggests a distinction between the application of power through conceptual intent and the manifestation of power through the suspension of conceptual determination. The latter would not require an absence of pneuma itself. This would be the previously discussed distinction of magick and sorcery. The possibility is that the reduction of local accretions allows relations with deeper and more powerful configurations that ordinary consciousness tends to obstruct.
We can therefore distinguish two speculative modes of efficacy. Intentional magick involves the formation and application of a desired conceptual configuration. Its possible efficacy depends upon the intensity with which that configuration is brought to bear upon the vector. The free flow of power involves the reduction of accretive constraints, potentially allowing action or manifestation without the same deliberate conceptual direction.
These modes need not be entirely exclusive. A practitioner might alternate between them, or an intentional operation might require the prior weakening of habitual accretions. Nevertheless, the distinction is important. In the first mode, conceptuality is deliberately organised towards an outcome. In the second, conceptual organisation is reduced so that something less constrained by the ordinary human accretive field might become operative. This also suggests a distinction between magickal practice and spiritual development.
A complex occult system might become increasingly substantial through sustained accretion while simultaneously reinforcing the ordinary structures of human conceptuality. Conversely, practices concerned with emptiness and non-identification might weaken those structures without generating any elaborate symbolic system. There is consequently no reason to assume that the accumulation of occult associations necessarily produces greater access to deeper reality. Nor should we assume that experiences of spiritual emptiness establish the existence of anomalous causal powers.
The two modes remain hypothetical possibilities within the speculative curvature model. The distinction between intentional magick and the free flow of power complicates the idea that anomalous efficacy must involve accumulating sufficient force to overcome the stability of ordinary reality. Perhaps a human consciousness need not rival the vast accretions constituting the material world. In the intentional mode, efficacy might arise through an unusually intense and coherent application of conceptuality.
In the second mode, it might arise through the removal of accretive constraints, allowing the individual to participate in processes belonging to a much greater order of pneuminous organisation. The first suggests a concentration of conceptual power. The second suggests a release from conceptual determination. Both might, in principle, produce local modifications of the wider field, but through different relationships between human consciousness and the more stable accretions of reality.
This raises a further possibility: perhaps intensity itself is not always something generated through the concentration of conceptuality. It might sometimes emerge through the reorganisation or attenuation of existing structures. The underlying problem is therefore not simply one of quantity, but of organisation, relation and the conditions under which pneuminous power becomes operative.
Magick might seek to bend the vector through the intensity of intention, while sorcery might arise when intention itself ceases to impose its ordinary accretive constraints. Neither mechanism is established, but the distinction offers a more developed framework for investigating the possible relationship between consciousness, accretion and anomalous causation. It also opens a further speculative question: whether certain forms of dynamic organisation, particularly those resembling circulation and vortical concentration, might help explain how pneuminous intensity develops. This leads towards the possibility of pneuminous vortices.
